Refugees & Resettlement

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Refugees & Resettlement

The world has millions of refugees who are unable to go home or unwilling to do so in the face of persecution. Resettlement to a third country is considered for only a fraction of refugees, those whose conditions are so perilous or whose needs cannot be met in the country where they first sought protection. Only a small number of states take part in UNHCR resettlement programs—among them the United States, Australia, Canada, the Nordic countries, and increasingly some countries in Europe and Latin America. The research here examines refugee protection and resettlement policies.

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Through a broad overview of key policy and legislation dating back to the early 1990s, this paper finds that despite persistent efforts to coordinate an EU level approach to asylum and refugee protection, the process has been severely stifled by the lack of a philosophical consensus between Member States as to what constitutes refugee protection in Europe and globally.

Recognizing the particular challenges to refugee protection faced on both sides of the Atlantic, this report questions whether strengthening resettlement programs in the U.S. and Europe can help to address ongoing concerns over security, the volume and diversity of migrants, the rise of right-wing parties and the role of the welfare state.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., EU officials issued a symbolic statement that the EU was prepared to receive Afghan refugees displaced from the looming American intervention. Despite internal policy tendencies to reject Afghan claims to protection and domestic security concerns, EU officials seemed to recognize at the time there was very little risk of a massive influx of Afghan refugees.

This report seeks to evaluate the extent to which expanding resettlement programs across the European Union can provide a strategic tool to manage a greater number of legal arrivals to EU Member States and whether Member States possess the political will to engage in resettlement.

Amidst heightened security concerns in the post-9/11 world, this policy brief examines international responses to the Iraqi refugee situation and explores various tools that can effectively allow states to reconcile security efforts with the continued commitment to international protection.

This policy brief reviews what happened in the 1991 Gulf War and presents possible scenarios and factors affecting movements of refugees and internally displaced persons in Iraq. Focusing primarily on four potential scenarios, the author evaluates the relative likelihood of each scenario and implications each would have for refugees and IDPs.

This special issue of the Forced Migration Review (FMR) was produced in collaboration with MPI. FMR felt that the implications for refugees and IDPs of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and the events which followed were so significant that they warranted changing our publishing schedule to accommodate this additional issue.